Basal salts plus 0.5% colloidal Chitin plus 15 g/l agar agar, pH 5-6 failed to solidify? Why and how to solve it.
I think it might be easy if we make 2 part. 1 part with agar only and the other part with chitin, Mixed both the part before plating.
I think it could depends on the type of salts used and their concentration as well. Remember that colloidal chitin would not be soluble in that media which could act as metal flocculant in some cases . Besides, colloidal chitin is a partially deacetylated chitin and some amine groups of this biopolymer could have ionic interactions with both sulfate groups from agar-agar (polyelectrolyte complex) and metalic salts . This situation could prevent agar solidification. You should try to increase the agar concentration and to add colloidal chitin to the agar-salt mixture once it had been dissolved in hot water. Then stirred and led the mixture to solidify. In addition you should check if your agar is low or high strenght agar source. High strengh agar source should be prefered .Good luck ...
One can expect several causes that could prevent solidification of the mixture, Agar- Chitin. The comment by Gustavo Cabrera appears to be experimentally acceptable, especially increasing the agar amount must be considered. Besides be sure that your agar is not partially degraded; and when the agar-chitin medium is prepared (at around 80°C) the mixture solubility and homogeneity are occurring
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